


quantum leap

by ChimericalSerenity



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, BAMF Steve Rogers, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Endgame, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, idk how to explain it :/c, sort of? but not?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 07:31:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18655822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChimericalSerenity/pseuds/ChimericalSerenity
Summary: Steve returns the stones.





	quantum leap

**Author's Note:**

> Because Steve leaving Bucky behind was too much for my poor heart.
> 
> (a repost bc all the ao3 tags are not working :/c)

**2024, HOME**

“I’ll miss you,” his cerulean eyes are oceanic, deep.

“Try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“How can I?” It’s such a sweet, little reply, voice soft; Steve knows the rest of the jibe by heart, the push and pull of their conversations, too little said too late, “you’re taking all the stupid with you.”

 

**2012, NEW YORK**

He lands in New York, case heavy in hand. With the detailed guidance of the team, he locates the Sorcerer Supreme with ease.

Her back is a rigid line, pressed sharp and vibrant against the muggy skyline of the Chitauri battle.

Steve takes a step forward, hesitant to disrupt her passive surveyance of the city’s carnage, but before he’s able to take a step further, announce his presence, she speaks.

“Thank you, Steve,” she finally turns, and her eyes are wet. Red eyes stark among her albino features, “the future lies uncertain, ahead, but the divergent paths aren’t the senseless chaos I’ve seen prior. You’ve succeeded, against all odds.”

She smiles, thin lips pursed bloodless, but there is kind warmth in pale eyes.

Steve flounders. Despite all his contributions, the gratitude he receives is always gushing, directed towards the ideology his shield and stiff armour stand for. Not him. He hunches, shoulders low in the face of her gaze, “I, yes. Thank you for putting your trust in us.”

She shakes her head, “if not for Bruce mentioning Dr. Strange’s actions, I would never have allowed it. That is on me.”

Her hands reach forward, spindly and elegant, to pluck the stone from his grasp. They both watch as it slots itself back into its rightful holster, the pupil of the Eye a bright verdant once more.

He doesn’t quite agree, but there’s no reason to push his insistence. Instead, he aligns his gaze with hers. The haze of smoke and fire, the proud jut of the Avenger’s Tower that rises above it. He is there somewhere, unyielding morals yet miser’s heart. He is not that man anymore. Cannot bring himself to fill the worn shoes that now feel alien along his soles.

The Sorcerer Supreme doesn’t speak, but like a sixth sense, when her eyes brush over his form, it is like she knows exactly what he cannot voice.

“Things will work out. The stones will pave way for the rest. The past is where a part of you belongs, and you can fix that.”

He’s not so sure.

Her eyelashes are so very light in the sun. He can’t help but think that her words are the simple, easy truth.

Yet, he is so, so tired.

He thinks back to Bucky, the way he voiced that I miss you, a bit too much gravitas for that ten-second trip. His smile is more pained than anything. He aches, to know that Bucky would accept his hasty departure, a fleeting embrace, in exchange for decades of lost time.

If he had known what Bucky had meant, he would’ve brought him along. To the end of the line.

Instead, there is only bitter regret that he tastes in the back of his throat. He disappoints the people he cares for the most.

He remains silent, but his mind rages, the dissent a strong hurricane, crashing into the port of his conscience. He would never.

The serum had changed more than his appearance, placed the weight of a country on his shoulders, morphed his mentality to fit. He thinks back to the idyll life he would have wished to share with an agent Margaret Carter. His mind lurches horribly.

He is not good for her. Maybe once, but not anymore.

Still, he thanks her. Her assertion sinks like a stone, almost like the weight of dread, in his gut.

\--

Returning the Sceptre is ridiculously easy. He phones Nick Fury.

“You say you _found_ the stones?” His single eye is narrowed, as uncompromising as ever.

Of course, the most stubborn, suspicious bastard in the world wouldn’t cut him slack. He nods, but there is no conviction behind it. He is merely playing out the last of his role, tired strings and limbs of a puppeteer’s last dance.

“Yeah.” He drops it on the desk, quipping wryly, “no need to thank me or anything.”

“Who are you?” He demands.

It is familiar, the bitterness that washes over him. He thought he was better, over this. But emotions rise up to the surface of his mask like bubbles of air in a pool. He sighs, “does it even matter?”

He opens the case, and the blooming brilliance of the tesseract’s glow and glint of heavy power emanating from the sceptre is genuine alright.

Fury nods, slowly, as if processing. Already, his hands are reaching forward to slam the case shut.

Without a word goodbye, Steve leaves the room, back burning with the intensity of Fury’s gaze on his way out.

 

**2013, ASGARD**

Just around the corner, he realizes that he cannot breathe. He hates the taste of New York air with an intensity, the smoke and particles filling his lungs with the past he cannot regain. It tastes like death. Flurry of blonde-fiery hair and fox-smiles. Dark peppered hair and intense eyes.

He misses so much; it resounds as visceral pain.

Nothing matters anymore. All their conflict blown to the wind, leaving behind gorges of weariness and liquidated eyes.

He wants to leave. Needs to.

His hands tremble with haste, as he slots a Pym particle into the slot, keys in coordinates he’s embossed into memory, and disappears.

He opens his eyes and is met with the colonial structures of a palace. Asgard.

Quietly, he sneaks into Jane Foster’s room. She is awake, standing by the window as she starts her day, humming casually to herself.

She barely senses a thing until he reintroduces the Aether.

She gasps, a pained, hoarse thing that Steve ought to feel bad for, and slumps in his grasp, tiny and foetal. He carries her and deposits her gently on the bed she barely rose from.

She looks deceptively peaceful in the dim glare of the sun’s rising rays, barely topping the horizon of the Asgardian skyline.

He stands, a bit out of place in the Grecian-like environment. There is nothing for him to do here, only a surmounting panic as he draws close to where he is destined to be, the timeline he is drawn to. Each step taking him closer to a mistake he still wishes to not be part of.

He paces two small steps, hesitant scuffling of feet upon the embroidered rug, before leaving for Morag.

 

**2014, MORAG**

The chamber door is ajar when he arrives, the air deathly still.

He bypasses Quill’s slumped form and deposits the stone. As if sensing his intent, the beams do not hurt him, glance of his skin as he replaces the stone to its rightful place. There is nothing stopping him, for the hands of fate are kind to attempts at restoring of balance.

The glow of it is intensified in the barrier, shining gleaming temptation. He hates himself for the weakness, but instead of soldiering on with his mission, he takes a moment to sit, back against the wall and knees to his chest.

No matter what he’s experienced, what he means to people, symbol of America, or heroism or the world, he is anything but. He closes his eyes, forehead resting on the curl of his legs and he feels like he’s in grade school again, faceless hands shoving him into the metal edges of cabinets, words prickling furor on the edge of his mind; small, alone, angry.

He feels no different. He’s still burning with that anger. A deep well of never-ending spite and hate and hurt. He wants it to end.

It’s coming to a close, but with each step, the ache for want is stronger and stronger. He misses the idea of him, but there is nowhere left for him after this.

He grips the tube in his hand, the blood-red tinge of the vial glowing with the purplish hues of the barrier adjacent. He rubs a finger along it, delicate and gentle, thoughtful.

Does he want that life back?

Maybe he did, once. But he remembers his own voice, hypocrite lies; waking up, moving on. In reality, he’s one of the minority that never did. He wants that back, a sore hurt that aches his very joints, quakes him. But that moment has gone and past.

Like quantum mechanics, that exact particle, in that time, in that moment – he has been deformed, he is not the same.

It will never be the same.

He thinks back to Bucky, and thinks, with a new resolve, that he cannot, will not leave him.

That fond tiredness that tinged his tone is disappointing, brings a sting to his eyes. He does not know if he hurts because of Bucky’s lack of confidence, or because, in his heart, he knows that he is right.

He stands. Slowly, on new limbs like a coltish deer. Stretches.

He has work to do.

 

**2014, VORMIR**

For a lack of a better word, Vormir is intense. He’s been dreading this trip, for Clint was hardly eager to voice his experience, to relive the pain. Still, the clipped directions send him where he needs to be.

The hike up the mountain whilst arduous, is relatively pleasant, spent with eyes on the horizon, unthinking, breaths echoing clean and loud in the cavity of his lungs.

He is drained, emotionally, physically, yet the ripping storm that batters the mountainside is intense and harsh, invigorates him to take step after step in chase of the peak.

He owes it to all of them. To Natasha.

Unexpectedly, he is faced with a familiar face.

“Steven Rogers.” The voices muses. There is no bitterness in the inflexion, only a mild surprise in face of a person once known lifetimes ago. “Son of Sarah.”

“Hello,” he says, holding out the stone, expectant.

If possible, he doesn’t want to remain a second longer, in this cavern of death. He can barely turn his gaze towards the precipice, irrational fears of looking down and finding Natasha lying spread-eagled, blood damping the tresses of her flaming hair.

His nails cut into the fleshy muscle of his palms.

He wants to be done with it.

A brow, raised, but he can hardly tell from the intense scarring and redness of damaged skin, “this invalidates Clint Barton’s sacrifice.”

 Steve feels a chill run down his spine, a thrill or anxiety, or fear; he doesn’t know.

“What are you saying?” His voice is distant.

“A sacrifice means naught in the face of a returned power. You of all people should understand what that means.” The voice intonates.

He passes the stone to him, with a renewed haste, and then sinks into a forced oblivion. When he wakes, he rouses in a pool of shallow water. It stretches on for miles, water and sky conjoined, a bubble of still beauty.

His heart is sinking. He is alone.

And then, on the horizon, he spots the curve of a body, dark clothes and hair in the low light, almost fused into the gentle slopes of the mountain, a woman’s body.

His heart stops, then, up on his feet, he is running, kneeling, cajoling a spirit to resettle into body.

Then, her eyes flick open, and he is overwhelmed, with joy, with sadness, he can’t quite tell. Amalgam of the two.

“Steve…?” She asks, incredulous and confused, then, in a sharper tone, “where Clint?”

His heart is bursting. “Natasha,” he gasps, sobs. “He’s, we’re, we won.” And then, he’s sobbing into her lax embrace. Despite her confusion, her arms tighten around him reflexively, soothing and calming, for a moment, he feels loved, belonging.

They separate.

He can hardly explain things properly, so exhausted from the emotion and physical feats, that he only manages to leave her with a short explanation, pressing the Pym particle into her hand with insistence.

“You should go back,” he says.

Her lips are tight, doe eyes heavy and sad. “Steve…my present will never be your past.”

He knows. He closes his eyes. _He knows_.

“I could stay with you.” She offers, and it is the olive branch he knows any sane man would take, but there are things he needs to do that ultimately do not concern her. He has mourned her, and grieved and bargained and pleaded and there will not be a day which passes without her thoughts lingering on her like a stain, but she deserves so much more than to be dragged into the unknown, a life alien to her as it was to him once.

“No,” he says, and even though Natasha is sad, her eyes are shuttering, relieved, almost. She needs a break, and knows that with him, she will never find one.

“Your future will be good.” He compensates, “no matter where you end up, it will be good for you.” An alternate reality where Natasha will be alive and well with the Avengers. Imagine that. He smiles.

She hugs him for a long while, rests her head into the crook of his neck as they sit in the bed of water.

Then, she collects herself, palms still flitting along his shoulders, his arms, as if seeking for the last remnants of their shared comfort, before she presses the particle into the slot and vanishes before his eyes.

He does not cry, but the joy that touched his heart leeches from him, ephemeral, transient.

One last stone.

He disappears.

 

**1970, NEW JERSEY**

The past is ugly, dirt roads and underdeveloped buildings and sandy dunes that itch his eyes.  

It’s ridiculously easy; security is lax and unsophisticated 50 years in the past. With modern tech, it’s easy to sneak past defences and into Hank Pym’s office. The particles are merely behind a flimsy sheet of reinforced glass, and with the help of modern tech, he’s in and out in seconds. He’s just about to head off, in the process of pocketing them, when the voice hits him, a wonderous, sweet sound.

He shuts his eyes. Curses. Fuck. He’s…

“Steve? What…why are you here?” Her confusion is warranted, the sharp, alert ring of her tone a quiet hiss in the cavern of the room. The space between them yawns.

 “I’m not him,” he wants to explain, but the words trip up in his mind, upon his tongue. He is always tongue-tied around her, no matter when or who he is. He smiles weakly. That part of him has never changed.

She inches into the room, shuts the door gently, cautiously, like everything she ever does, she is kind and efficient and fair.

“I’m listening,” she probes.

That’s not what he meant. He takes a step back, and it physically hurts him.

The briefcase is heavy in his hand.

Quieter now, soothing, she says, “Steve?”

“Peggy,” he moans. The name is hard to procure on his mouth, so alien after so long. He misses her so, so much. But in light of his experiences, she looks young and confused and too good for him.

Lips thin, “maybe we should take this elsewhere. You’re in no condition to be in public right now.” Her hand finally finds his shoulder, delicate and bird-like.

He bows his head. Though the words of rejection are heavy on his mind, he doesn’t have the heart to say no.

\--

She pours him a coffee.

It’s strong and just how he remembers the beans tasting like, acidic and pungent and not that great. He downs the cup.

Reflexively, she pours him another.

He smiles, “thanks.” A halting pause.

“I’m not the Steve you know.”

“Yes.”

He looks up at her, amazed.

She’s unimpressed, “you think I couldn’t tell?” It actually strikes a nerve, to hear her say that. He’s gripping the mug a bit too tight.

Silence reigns again. She’s realized that there’s more to his visit than casual, that he’s bursting, ready to rip at the seams.

She hums, a nice sound. Then, a fiddling of a dial and a radio that kicks in. The channels switch idly for a few seconds, and he wonders what she’s getting at. Then, she grins at him, and he turns his attention towards the familiar music. He remembers the song clearly, and her mischievous disposition makes it clear that she does as well.

He doesn’t know how she always fucking manages to do it, but it tears a laugh from him, more of a sob than anything.

“Alright,” he says, “you win, Agent Carter.”

“Damn right,” and she settles into his body like a mold, arms warm and tingly around his neck.

He sways in time to the music, in time to her beat, and for a moment, it feels like the pieces have aligned, that he can be that same particle in that endless mill of thousands, that he can be what ever _this is_ for her.

But then, the swell of the music ends, and he feels her lips on his, and all he can think about is how he slammed his shield into the chest of a friend when he was hurting the most, the hurt confusion he felt when he sent a mask askew and found himself looking into unfamiliar hazel eyes, wild and feral and empty beyond what he could have ever imagined.

He pushes away. “Peggy,” he says, faltering, “I can’t stay.”

“I know,” her eyes are sad. “I just miss him.”

He wishes the world for her, and the words of the Sorcerer Supreme ring in his ears.

The briefcase feels like a bomb in his grasp. He knows, suddenly, knows viscerally, that he could. He could fix this for Peggy. Save her from a world of hurt and grieving.

She can sense that his gears are turning, the distant, faraway look in his eyes, “oh Steve,” she whispers.

He knows what he has to do.

\--

A few million miles from the Peggy’s house, he finds a humble encampment in the woods. It’s pitch dark in the middle of the night. Sleep-addled, less experienced, battle weary with bladder full and pants down, it is slightly worrying how easily he manages to clamp a hand over his own mouth, drag him further away from the clearing. Knows exactly how to catch him off guard.

“Who the hell are you?” Past-him hisses, as he drags him off.

“Esther Varthy. We fell into the pond on our date. Bucky laughed at us for the next two months.” He says, the words emerging easy.

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Because I’m you.” He spells it out, impatient.

“He hates what he’s doing to him, but he’s never been able to stomach the things that he’s needed to do the most, anyway. He’s failed, every single time. The other him wouldn’t be missing out on much, apart from emotional scars and a battle-leaden heart.

Rather than explain it in full, he can feel the hum of the Tesseract, the heavy buzzing it emits in face of their proximity.

Like destiny intended. He thinks wryly.

He presses the Tesseract to the other’s skin, and watches fascinated as it tugs the serum from his pores. The physical reparation done by the serum is irreparable, leaving his body in a perfect condition, but it’s obvious that his arm is cramping from the weight of the shield, now, and the heavy armour is digging painfully into his skin.

The weakness, the pain is unfamiliar.

He looks at him, and there is familiar anger in those eyes, “what the hell did you do to me?”

A fist is sent out, but without the serum in his veins, it is only above average, but painfully human. He grips the fist gently in his super-strength hands.

He will never rest easy, probably. Will lie thinking about what he could have been for the country, spend ages coming to terms with the brief responsibility that lay across his shoulders. But there is also a world of hurt out there waiting for him that some masochistic drive will forever push him towards. Even if there is no reason for him to do so.

“Look at me,” he says, and the bitter edge of his tone is antagonistic, villainous. There is nothing soft or dreamer or artistic about him anymore. Maybe that is why Steve Rogers, the most stubborn, instigative asshole in the world stops and listens, dismayed.

When he is finished, there is hate in those eyes. It is not something he will forget for a long, long time.

“All the more reason for me to continue doing this,” he spits, “your failure isn’t mine.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” He says. “It can be mine. Again.”

“Do you really think I’ll stop fighting for my country? His voice is sharp, pained,” He says, “I could never.”

“I’m not saying you have to.” He reasons, “you can re-enlist.” A simple soldier, a family photo, children, the pieces are flowing together. The past is the future but also the past. Diverging paths that reconverge, river ley lines that run their course. Inevitable. Destined.

“I won’t let you do this,” even in that threat, there is uncertainty in his voice, an unsurety of how he would be able to carry that weight on himself without breaking down.

He’s not sure if he’s managed himself.

“It’s not about what you’ll let or not let me do, friend,” He says, “its what is and isn’t.”

He touches the Tesseract to him once more, forcefully. He is bound to wake in Brooklyn, cramped flat with inconsistent heating and shitty mould.

**2024, HOME AGAIN.**

“Buck.”

That fucking voice.

He’s stepped through the door frame of his shitty motel, and the syllable haunts him. Washes over his psyche like the tremulous touch of a conscience, a heavy weight of _oh god, oh god, he left me._

Dimly, he’s aware that he’s shaking, fingers lax and coffee wetting the soles of his shoes. It’s forms a crusty halo around his shadow. He stares as it seeps into the beige carpet.

“Bucky,” softer now, cajoling. His fists are balled tight at his sides, the ever-ready aggressor, trigger-happy and ready to hurt and hurt.

A hand, pressed against the hunched apex of his shoulder, hot penitence splayed in a heavy palm across the dip between his shoulder blades. It’s equally as comforting as it is shameful, heavy pressure brought on by what he assumes is an overactive imagination. Yet that hand on him feels so, so real, and it aches in the soft divots of his gut and chest, right where it hurts the most.

“Steve.” It’s a name his gasps back, like the slow push and pull of a tide, the two of them circling yet not quite ever meeting in the middle. Conflict, with the smallest bouts of resolution, fleeting happiness of the in-betweens.

He turns, and there he is. That fucking bastard smiling warmly at him, crow’s feet touching the corners of his blue, blue eyes. He’s not that much older than he remembers. He’s _here_.

“You really think I’d have left you?”

He shakes his head, out of disbelief and a minor portion of dissent, and leans into the offered embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!


End file.
